5e Class Summaries for New Players

The Classics

The classic D&D party consists of four classes:

• Fighter (front-line combatant & general muscle)
• Cleric (healer, secondary melee combatant, magical utility)
• Rogue (ranged/opportunistic combatant, non-magical scouting and utility)
• Wizard (ranged combatant, magical scouting and utility)

Each of these classes is very broadly defined and can be effective in pretty much any environment or situation

Cleric

In Combat: Clerics are capable combatants, able to wield many different types of weapons and armor. Traditionalist clerics employ only blunt weapons. Clerics can also offer prayers to their patron (a god, goddess, saint, or philosophical principle) to heal their friends or smite their enemies- they are particularly good at destroying the undead and other other-worldly menaces.

Out of Combat: Clerics can ask for aid from their church as long as their mission is in accordance with its principles- the church may chose to provide as much as an army or as little as a bowl and a robe depending on the worthiness of the cause, the reputation of the cleric, and their resources. Clerics can pray to their patron to heal wounds or diseases, provide food or shelter, or seek portents of the future. They also likely know the lore of their church or people.

Fighter

In Combat: You are a master of all forms of armed and unarmed combat, and adept at employing any conceivable weapon or armor that you might encounter. You can specialize in a type of fighting at which you are particularly adept, and can keep yourself alive despite significant wounds.

Out of Combat: You are well-versed in tactics and strategy- you can spot favorable terrain, defensive choke points, ambush opportunities, etc., by inspecting your surroundings. You know the customs and culture of army encampments and how to make a living as a hired sword. You are good at identifying objects that are both small and valuable.

Rogue

In Combat: You are skilled with a number of light, easily concealed melee and missile weapons, and you are particularly good at striking from concealment or when an enemy is distracted. You are comfortable in light armor, but find heavier protection too constricting.

Out of Combat: You are a master of stealth and deception, able to sneak past guards, pick locks or pockets, and disable traps and alarms. You are good at recognizing valuable loot. Your criminal background may provide opportunities to find new work or buy and sell rare or illegal goods.

Wizard

In Combat: Your more powerful spells can kill or incapacitate multiple enemies at a time. Your weaker magic can provide you with a fair chance of defending yourself at a distance. You strive to avoid melee combat at all costs- you are more likely to wear armor backwards than correctly, and likely have only basic skills with a few rather non-threatening weapons. You are prone to dying without prior warning.

Out of Combat: Your spells can pierce the boundaries of time and space in pursuit of knowledge or power. You know a wide array of magical lore that may contain arcane secrets, forgotten history, or forbidden wisdom. You spend most of your spare time studying.

The Specialists

These classes can be thought of as specialized versions of the classic four- they trade a little overall utility for versatility or excellence in a particular area. Barbarians excel at close melee combat, but have a narrow range of tactics available to them compared to fighters. Monks ecel at unarmed combat and can make decent scouts, but lack the selection of weapons, armor, and tactics of the fighter or the focused specialization of the rogue. Rangers provide extra utility in a wilderness situation at the expense of overall combat options. Sorcerers have a narrower range of spells compared to other primary spell casters, but gain some versatility. 

Barbarian:

In Combat: You are a a fierce but undisciplined opponent, throwing yourself into combat with reckless abandon. You are familiar with most weapons, but prefer to stand toe-to-toe with an opponent while wielding a huge two-handed weapon. You are particularly adept at avoiding damage while wearing little or no armor.

Out of Combat: You have keen senses that make you adept at noticing danger, like traps or an ambush. You are good at shrugging off the effects of poisons and diseases, and difficult to hold o restrain. You likely grew up in the wilderness, and are skilled at surviving both in the wilds and
among the hardened people who live there.

Monk

In Combat: You are a master of the martial arts, being as or more effective bare handed at dealing and absorbing damage as most people are cased in steel and armed to the teeth. You are highly proficient with a small selection of deceptively simple melee and thrown weapons. You are adept at performing complex maneuvers (like flips, kicks, etc.) in combat.

Out of Combat: You likely belong to an order of warrior-monks, who you can seek out for assistance, wisdom, or further training. You may also know the philosophy and lore of your order, which may contain secrets about the world. You move quickly and can make an excellent spy or scout.

Sorcerer

In Combat: You can wield only a few basic weapons and shun armor in favor of magical attack and defense. You have a narrower selection of spells, but can change them up on the fly (unlike wizards, who must prepare their spells in advance).

Out of Combat: You are charismatic and find it easy to socialize with and manipulate others. You likely know some arcane lore or the history of your patron power.

Ranger

In Combat: You are familiar with a wide range of weapons, and may specialize in a preferred form of fighting. Almost all rangers maintain some skill with bows of some type.

Out of Combat: You are at home in the wilderness, and are particularly skilled at navigating and foraging in unfamiliar terrain. You can recognize important or edible plants and animals, natural hazards, signs of animal or monster dens, and track a quarry through any imaginable terrain.

The Utility Players

These classes can fill any of a variety of roles, and are common either as '5th party members' or to fill multiple roles in a smaller party. Bards bring a mix of magic, rogue skills, and combat utility and excel in social roles. Druids blend the wilderness expertise of a ranger with the spell casting and combat abilities of a cleric. Paladins combine some of the options of the cleric and the fighter and make excellent defensive fighters.

Bard

In Combat: You are a fair fighter with blade or bow, though you are most familiar with lighter, more elegant weapons. You can turn the tide of a battle at critical moments by inspiring your companions with your words or music.

Out of Combat: You excel at getting along with strangers and making new friends- you are also good at tricking or manipulating people. You know some minor magic that can be used to entertain, distract, or deceive. You have an excellent store of old stories, rumors, legends, and dirty jokes that can be used to recall facts about your environment or gain the friendship of primitive idiots.

Druid

In Combat: You are a versatile combatant, skilled with a small selection of traditional weapons. You can cast spells that call on the natural world to aid your allies or harm your enemies in combat, including healing wounds. At higher levels, you can transform into an animal and attack. You shun metal weapons and armor as much as possible.

Out of Combat: You know a great deal about the natural world and its inhabitants, and can survive there easily without any outside support. Your spells allow you to commune with natural spirits, seek portents of the future, heal the sick, etc.

Paladin

In Combat: You are highly skilled with a wide range of weapons and armor, and are most comfortable fighting as a heavily armed and armored knight. You are skilled at fighting from horseback and battling the undead. You can heal your allies by calling upon your faith.

Out of Combat: You can detect the presence of supernatural evil, and heal your allies with your faith and prayers. You can call on other members of your faith for assistance in worthy tasks. If you are recognized as a member of a particular knightly order, you likely have a good reputation that proceeds you everywhere you go- except in evil lands, where you may be met with hostility or scorn.

Warlock

In Combat: You iz muthafucking Skelator, yo! Zap things. Then zap them harder.

Out of Combat: I think you ride a bike or something.

Seriously, I've never played a warlock. Don't know anything about them.

Huzzah for new Goblin Concept Art

Round two of the Goblinoid concept art for D&DNext is out today, and I have to say that I am pretty excited about it (both the cartoon and the actual sketch). I was a bit disappointed by the first round of sketches, particularly the Goblin sketch which looked too gorilla-y and orc-like for my taste. While there are always going to be nits to pick (sweet, delicious nits!), I would be perfectly happy is this became the 'canon' goblin style for D&DNext. In face, I snagged both images to add to my huge folder of goblin images that I keep on my computer for... whatever. Yes, I do have such a thing, and no, I don't know what it is for. I just like having it.

Support the Myth & Magic GM's Guide Kickstarter!

I posted recently about how much I'm loving New Haven Games' Myth & Magic, so I feel obligated to do my part in spreading the word about the Myth & Magic Gamemaster's Guide Kickstarter that launched last week. I'm already in as a supporter- they reached their funding goal in the first 25 hours and are now cruising towards hitting their $15k stretch goal, which will add stats for an extra 50 monsters to the Guide's bestiary. At $20k, a hard copy GM's screen unlocks for purchase.

Myth & Magic is a really nice system for anyone who enjoyed 2e play or likes the feel of 3e, but dislikes the accompanying complexity. As the post above describes, it puts together a lot of the things that I'd hoped would end up as part of D&DNext with a more retro feel that can easily be made to work for both dungeoncrawls and more narrative adventures. New Haven Games put together a great product for their Player's Guide kickstarter, so I fully expect to be similarly impressed by the art and organization of the new GM's guide.

My D&DNext Looks like Myth and Magic

I learned to play D&D during the AD&D 2nd edition era. Not everything about that era was great for the game (bankrupting TSR, for instance), but I still have a lot of nostalgic memories of it. That is the form of the game that is familiar to me, and certain things about earlier editions (Dwarves being a class, no baseline Bard class) and later editions (sorcerers, Dragonborn and Tieflings) will always feel a little out of place for me.

But nostalgia isn't everything. 2nd editions rules were baroque and confusing in a lot of places. There were arbitrary restrictions from earlier editions ported over whole cloth (restricted class/race combos, alignment restrictions for rangers and thieves) that never really seemed justified within the game. 3e cleaned up a lot of the mess and added a nice unified skill system for task resolution, but added things that over-complicated the picture like multi-class/PrC fever and complex feat/Prc 'builds' that varied from the unplayable to the game breaking. The refined math made the game more intuitive, but also introduced us to the arms race of optimization and 'effectiveness' that swallowed 4e whole.

So when the Next playtest packets started appearing, I was excited. D&DNext, to me, looks a lot like 2nd edition looked before kits and optional rules and torturous attempts at re-building the non-weapon proficiency system into a general purpose skill system turned it into a morass. Shortly before the second playtest packet came out, I started putting together my own criteria for what I wanted from a D&D-ish experience. As of a couple days ago, it appears that what I was looking for is already here: a 2e retro-clone(ish) called Myth & Magic.

D&DNext Exploration Quick Reference

A thread over at EN World a few weeks ago got me thinking about the importance of keeping time during an adventure- particularly during old school, dungeon crawl-style adventuring. All those little bits and pieces of information- how long a torch lasts, how long until a buff wears off between combats- start to actually matter once you start keeping track of how long it is taking your party to move through a dungeon, search rooms, and engage in combat. These type of rules were very important to early editions of Dungeons and Dragons, and they provide some of the raison d'être for exploration-focused classes like the Rogue and (in wilderness environments) the Ranger. If it doesn't matter how long torches burn for, how long buffs last, and whether or not that Thief can see effectively when he or she goes scouting, some of the flavor of an old-fashioned dungeon crawl is lost- and you might as well junk a lot of the mundane equipment in the gear lists.


With that in mind, I used the Labyrinth Lord rules together with some old 1/2e D&D references to come up with some quick and easy rules for keeping track of time, light, and movement inside a dungeon environment. The rules are intended to be used with D&D Next (I'll be using them with my PbP playtest), but are suitably generic that they can be dropped into most D&D compatible settings (though I do reference advantage and disadvantage in the lighting rules, to stay consistent with the playtest rules for blindness- you can easily enough sub your own penalties as appropriate). Credit to GX.Sigma at EN World for the original inspiration for these rules.

Resources for Reclaiming Blingdenstone

I'm getting ready to run Reclaiming Blingdenstone as a PbP for a bit.  Below, I've collected some resources from around the web that can help in running the adventure.  I'll expand as I find new materials.


Trackers and quick reference sheets for Reclaiming Blingdenstone:
http://kootenaygamer.blogspot.com/2012/08/blingdenstone-enhanced.html

Digital versions of the two main maps, plus some more options for chapter three:
http://kootenaygamer.blogspot.com/2012/08/more-blingdenstone.html

A replacement for the Drow antagonist from Appendix 3- The Cult of Urlden
http://kootenaygamer.blogspot.com/2012/08/hidden-enemies-cult-of-urlden.html

More electronic maps- this time for the Dungeon Mapp program:
http://ambitioussoftware.com/main/page_mapps_to_share.html

What is the last group of maps for?
http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/328360-blingdenstone-question.html

Several of these are from Jeremy Murphy blog, Over the Misty Mountains.  Well worth checking out his other posts on adapting the D&D Next rules and creating some enhancements to the adventure.

My exploration, time, and vision rules and quick reference tables:
http://rat-catcher.blogspot.com/2012/09/exploration-quick-reference.html

5e Character Creation Redux

After last nights exhaustive (and exhausting) walk through, I tried my hand at creating another D&D Next character.  While Foobar Testface was a pretty straightforward concept and execution, I decided for my next candidate to be a bit more creative.  To that end, I went full Willow on the character creation rules, creating a Neutral Evil Hafling Wizard Spy Necromancer, who I've yet to name but am currently referring to as 'Bad Hobbit'.

This time, I played with the standard stat array (8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15) rather than going for random rolls.  I also ignored the RAW for play test character creation and assigned my attributes right from the get-go, rather than waiting until after my Racial and Class abilities were ready to plug in.

Observations:

• Human attribute bonuses seem even more OP after running through the character creation process with a non-human.  +1 to every single attribute AND +2 to your primary attribute seems like a bonanza, particularly if you're someone who likes well-rounded characters.  With attributes getting more attention than ever with D&D Next (thanks to the apparent decline in importance of skills & skill ranks), this really feels like an obligatory feature if you are at all interested in optimizing a character.
• Halfling racial abilities all seemed to fit the theme of the race quite well.  I'm pleased to see the return of some mechanical benefits for sub-races, but the Halfling race bonuses do seem to push them solidly in the direction of Rogue being their best class, and them being the best Rogues.  That's OK, as long as the playing field is relatively level for everyone else, and they aren't head-and-shoulders above the rest of the gang.
• Halfling weapon dice scaling salves the bitter wounds left by weapon shrinkage in 3.5e.  Hoping that other Small races (like my beloved Gnomes and Goblins) get comparable qualities to keep them competent at hand-to-hand, but not holding my breath.
• Creating a Wizard gave me some much harder choices to make compared with the Warlock I built yesterday.  While the Warlock Invocations were fairly easy to pick (and there weren't many of them), I spent a fair bit of time thinking about situational uses for my spells and minor spells.  I quite missed having a larger range of cantrips to choose from that I could plug into 0-level slots instead of a fixed pool of at-will spells.  I've often found uses for Mage Hands over the years, but felt like Light and Detect Magic were obligatory utility spells and that I needed an offensive at-will (like Magic Missile) to round out the selection instead of relying on my sling skills (though the sling does have a nice +6 to hit and 1d6 damage).  I kind of hope Detect Magic eventually gets baked into something like a Magical Lore check- it's such a universally used spell that requiring every character to have it starts to feel like a spell tax, or like you have fewer spells than you are told.
• Building on the above- the Magic-User specialty feels even more useful when faced with having to pick cantrips that you will presumably have with you forever.  Doesn't seem like (so far) there is a way to gain more later.  Again, I'd prefer the 0-level spell slots option to having this choice be permanent.
• The level 1 Necromancer benefits seem a bit weak in comparison to the other prime-time spell caster specialty, Magic-User.  At first level you have a choice of two necromantic spells (Cause Fear and Ray of Enfeeblement), which means you aren't going to often have the chance to kill something and then cast a spell within one minute.  On the other hand, it likely will scale better with higher levels than having extra cantrips- being able to blast a minion with Magic Missile in round 1 and then cast a high-level necromantic spell with advantage in round 3 could be a pretty nice combo.  Feels a bit like the nub of a 'combo point wizard' build- wonder if they will build that out further at some point.
• My Warlock from yesterday's post feels like a much bigger combat threat than my Wizard.  Getting off a Ray of Enfeeblement or a Burning Hands or two, followed by lots of Magic Missiles or sling stones seems pretty paltry compared with the Warlock's at-will 3d6 Eldritch Blast, to say nothing of his higher Hit Points and armor class and better weapon selection (again, still don't know why a Warlock would ever use a weapon).
• Regarding balance- a number of posters on the forums have noted that the Sorcerer and Warlock feel a lot more powerful than the Core 4.  Not sure whether we will see a boost to the Core 4 or a nerf to the new guys, but one of the two is bound to happen quite soon.  The disparity between the combat potential of the Warlock and the Wizard (at least at low levels) makes me wonder if WotC is trying to push the Wizard a little more into the controller role that it held in 4e, while giving the Warlock the blasting/Striker crown.  Maybe it's just a transient effect of the two classes being in different stages of review, though.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with my Bad Hobbit.  I've never played a Halfling spell caster before, and created him mostly as a laugh, but now I'm quite looking forward to the opportunity to play him for a bit.  Anyone looking for a player ;)

D&D Next Character Creation Walkthrough

As the new D&D Next play test packet is out, I thought I would walk through character creation and see what the experience was like, approaching it from a fairly newbie-ish perspective- just to see what was there, and what was left out.

Character Concept
As my character concept, I decided to play a dark but charismatic arcane type- I've previously created a similar character in Pathfinder as a Infernal bloodline Sorcerer; since Greatsword-wielding Dragonblood is the only Sorcerer archetype available in the current play test, I decided to create him as a Warlock.  In keeping with the spirit of the experiment, I named him Foobar Testface.

Attribute Generation
In honesty, its been a while since I did anything other than point-buy or standard-array a character, so I rolled for variety.  The default method recommended (4d6 drop lowest x 6, arrange to taste) produced the following array: 13, 15, 8, 14, 9, 17

Not bad.  Four above average rolls, and two below average.  I was already eyeing making that 17 my Int (since it's primary for Warlocks) and the 15 my Cha, to provide some face-like interaction potential.

Race Selection
I'd settled on Human at the concept state, so this was a non-decision.  Nevertheless, it lead to a couple of observations.

Observation 1: The Human ability score bump feels overpowered: Right off the bat, Foobar Testface went from above-average to superstar.  His starting array now stood at 14, 16, 9, 16, 10, 18.  Rather than jump straight to 19 for my primary attribute, I decided to share the love a bit and gave myself a second score of 16 for an extra bit of bonus.
Observation 2: Humans are mechanically great, but their race features are boring: Yeah, the attribute bumps are great, but once you've assigned your +2 you're done with the interesting bits.  In previous editions, Humans had fairly generic bonuses, but at least got some choice in terms of extra feats, At-will powers, or other features.  The flavor of humanity is more flavorless than ever.
Observation 3: You actually need to assign attributes before picking a class or race: The provided character creation document gets it wrong on this one, in my book.  What's the first thing you see upon looking at your class description?  An ability modifier.  But I haven't assigned my abilities yet.  For that matter, if I hadn't already kinda-sorta pre-selected which numbers went with which abilities, I couldn't really have picked where to assign my +2 attribute bonus when I picked my race.  Rather than making attribute assignment come after Race and Class selection, WotC needs to provide a little primer on how to pick attributes (for example, a table of primary attributes for each class) and take care of that before we get to the race stage.  Otherwise, character creation happens in a weird order where you pick a race, but can't apply the ability adjustments for that race until later in the game.  Character creation should be a progression, not a process of flipping back and forth between chapters and hoping you haven't forgotten anything.

Class Selection
I'd decided to make Testface a Warlock from the outset, so I flipped to the Warlock chapter of the demo files to take a look at my Warlock abilities.  As I describe in Observation 3 above, I hit a snag here in that I was given the option of boosting an attribute by my class abilities, but hadn't put numbers to attributes yet.  I decided to ignore WotC's instructions at this point, and select abilities in order to facilitate writing down my class abilities.

Here's Foobar Testface's attributes, after class adjustment: Str 9, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 19, Wis 10, Cha 16

Observation 4: Class ability adjustment + race ability adjustment = superman: I chose to create a more well-rounded character, but at this point I could have had a starting Int of 20 if I wanted.  Using the starting array rather than random rolls, I would have been guaranteed an 18 in my primary attribute as a Human.  The max roll possible is now the default for Human members of that class.  Not sure what the implications of that are yet, but it implies a certain amount of built-in min-max-i- ness.  I'm not so naive as to think that a lot of (if not most) PC's were starting out with that 18 in their prime attribute before, but it does reflect a change.
Observation 5: Order of operations: The Character Creation document doesn't have me figuring up my starting HP and other combat numbers until later, but if you look at your Class description you get hit with formulas for this sort of thing immediately, which you need to then flip back for when you finalize your numbers and calculate your bonuses.  Which are on a chart several chapters back.  The order of events and sequence of pages and chapters you move through really needs to be streamlined, and maybe re-thought.  Why are starting HP calculations with each individual class, rather than at the end of the chapter when you are calculating HP?  We've always done this with starting money, but not HP.  Why not put the attribute bonus table at the end of the Class/Character Creation chapter, if your attributes are not going to get their final values until after you've picked your class?  Things get particularly lost when you get to the Class phase of character creation.  As a Warlock, when do I need to pick my invocations?  How do I record my boons- 2 per whatever unit time?  There is a whole ton of stuff to record, and it isn't clear where to put it, or, from a new players perspective, how much of it needs to be recorded at once.
Observation 6: Pact Benefits Need Names:  They just do.  I need to be able to reference an ability rather than writing the whole thing down.
Observation 7: Character sheet weirdness:  In general, I found the process of adding my class abilities to Foobar Testface needlessly complicated.  It wasn't clear where to record things on the character sheet, and how much detail was needed.  Things didn't have names.  There is a whole big huge chunk of text on my sheet for 'Race' and 'Class', and I'm not sure how it is meant to be different from the Racial Benefits and the Class Benefits section.  I don't have any Race benefits as a human worth noting, anyway, since they are all recorded elsewhere, so I would rather just have a big blank 'Class and Race Abilities' section that I could use for whatever I wanted.
Observation 8: Warlock balance:  Eldritch blast feels overpowered to me, in comparison to things like Sneak Attack or Magic Missile.  Automatic 3d6 from 50' away, uses the Warlock's Magic Base Attack Bonus (which is equal to the Melee Attack Bonus of a Fighter), doesn't require advantage, and never runs out of ammo.  At level 1, I ended up with a +7 attack that does 3d6 at-will.  Seems a little bit much.  Meanwhile, Breath of Night seems under powered as an expenditure of one of your two daily (or interval-ly) boons, particularly compared with something like Shadow Veil that can be used without spending a boon.

I left the class section feeling like I would need to come back again later and finish filling things in, and make sure I hadn't forgotten anything.

Background Selection
I didn't really have a clear idea of a background for Foobar, so I looked through the various packages available.  I ended up selecting Charlatan, as I felt like that tied in well with his social skills.
Observation 8: Here a skill, there a skill:  More of a knock on the character sheet, I guess, but there is no single place on the provided sheet to note all of your skill training.  Mr. Testface has three skills from his background, plus another skill from his class.  I'm guessing Races could also provide skill training.  That's three different places to look for your skill modifiers.  Make a 'Skills' section in a future character sheet, please.
Observation 9: Unskilled: It feels like D&D Next characters are trained in fewer skills, or more narrow skills, than in earlier editions.  3e characters had a number of different skills (assuming they weren't Fighters), and 4e skills covered a lot of territory.  Play test characters feel like they have a very narrow range of skill competency- maybe higher ability scores are meant to compensate?  Feels like there are fewer ways to customize a character and reflect their specific skill focuses compared to 3e or Pathfinder, and that the skills that they do have just aren't as valuable as they were in 4e.

Specialty Selection
Specialties are currently Feat-bags of sorts, pending the release of a full Feat system.  Some of the Specialties look great, because they can apply to a lot of different classes- Archer and Dual Wielder, for instance, could work for a Fighter, a Rogue, a Ranger, a Paladin, etc., depending on your focus.  The suggested Specialty for Warlock is Magic User, which adds the ability to cast a couple minor Wizard spells at level 1, and then adds the Find Familiar ability at level 3.  Necromancer was intriguing to me, since I've always loved the idea of having undead minions, but the level 1 ability is entirely useless for a Warlock; since there are no Necromantic Warlock spells for Foobar Testface to cast at level 1, I can either select something useless to me right now and for the foreseeable future in the hope of eventually getting a cool skeleton buddy, or take something useful right now and give up being able to progress towards having an undead minion.  I decided to suck it up and take Magic User.
Observation 10: Limited Specialties:  We really need more specialties available in order to judge how useful they are going to be.  There are really limited options right now that are of use to multiple classes.  While being a Rogue who can cast two minor Wizard spells may be kind of cool, I see most people just taking the Specialty package that 'matches' their class.  Some Specialty features- like familiars and having a fighting style- feel like they should be 'baked in' to classes like Wizard or Fighter or Ranger.

Assigning Attributes
If you hadn't already assigned attributes by now, you would need to go back and pick up your racial adjustments and class adjustments.  Don't see anyone who has played the game before doing that- the order of events needs to be revised.

Combat Numbers
Lots of flipping back to earlier sections here.  Also, though you're prompted to calculate your Armor Class here, you're not choosing equipment until later in the process.

Other Observations:

• Healer's kits are dead cheap.  Why wouldn't everyone have one, making the Herbalist level 1 benefit kind of redundant?
• Formatting on the character sheet is screwy- I got a lot of E's that look like 'F's because they are too low on the line.
• Why would a Warlock bother carrying weapons?  'Eldritch Blast' seems to be the answer to every question.
• Really liking the idea of making spells into rituals and using the Ritual Component Pouch.  Strikes a nice balance in terms of not needing to prepare as many 'what if' spells for Vancian casters, and adds some point to spell components without needing to count pinches of bat guano individually.
• Non-savable PDF forms suck.  A lot.  Make the form savable if you're going to make it fillable.
• No good place on the character sheet to note your melee attack bonus independent of what weapon you are using.  Might be handy if your character picks up a weapon at random- most of what I've equipped in the 'Attack' section so far were finesse weapons that used my Dex bonus + melee attack.
• Lot of empty space on my character sheet right now.  On the sample characters, the writers wrote out a lot of description for each ability.  I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to write down some bare bones facts (uses per day/rest, range, damage, attack bonus, etc.) and a page number reference.
• Can't fill out the name field on the character sheet PDF.
• Seems to be some inconsistency between calling cantrips cantrips and calling them 'minor spells'.  I guess because of orisons.  It would be nice to just standardize things- call them 'minor arcane' and 'minor divine' spells.  Whenever I see 'orison', I have to mentally change it to 'cleric cantrip'.
• Changing abilities from 'per day' to 'and then they are restored when you take a long rest' is really verbose.  We need a shorter way to say that.
• Hard to really make too many judgement about the Warlock or Sorcerer classes without more Bloodlines/Pacts available.  Ideally that should end up as a really important choice for your PC, but right now every member of that class looks the same.
• Some of the Specialties feel like they ought to be class options- Lurker jumps out as one that feels more comparable to Thief and Thug than to anything else.